Saturday, 6 December 2014

Funeral Parade of Roses (1969)

From http://www.jposter.net/images/products/funeralroses.jpg

Dir. Matsumoto Toshio

I like to write about
unconventional films, but there are some cases where the film in question has
so much I could talk about, and are truly unconventional, that I feel daunted
in trying to type this review. Funeral
Parade of Roses is such a film. But, as with this film, there is a reason
for this that I can write about if I am unsure what to say - that you could
never get a film like these today, which is disappointing because a film like
this feels more advanced and progressive than some of today, but a film like
this is forty or so years old. Funeral
Parade of Roses is playful and provocative in everything it does
differently from other films. Set within the political and artistic hotbed of
late Sixties Japan, the film follows Eddie, played by real life transsexual Peter, a male cross dresser who is in
conflict with a rival drag queen over the affections of a drug smuggling
cabaret manager Gonda (Yoshio Tsuchiya).
Eddie is a psychologically complex person, flashes of his childhood and
adolescence seen throughout the film which show what is bubbling under the
surface of his makeup and elegant appearance. Shot in stark monochrome, the
film is a hybrid of multiple cinematic forms, a narrative feature which yet has
documentary interviews with drag queens and Peter
the actor himself spliced in-between, a tone varying from the serious to the
cartoonish.

From http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PpcRKBVMEOE/TfcKDCfxSLI/AAAAAAAAAQw/dgG1SmnIepk/s1600/vlcsnap-2011-06-11-22h47m04s254.png

The film never becomes stale or
procrastinates despite its tangent heavy tone, always on an interesting point.
It not only has real documentary footage, but porn shoots within the narrative,
and reflective the director's avant-garde and installation film making,
experimental films within the film that we see by themselves and being created
by the avant-garde filmmaker characters that make up the people that Eddie
interacts with. The fiction is designed to pull along the reality with it,
while the fiction itself is layered and filled with various and different sorts
of material shown to the viewer. The result disrupts but also creates a
narrative structure which places further importance on story points when they
are returned to, that of Eddie's complicated life, as well as flesh the real
content, set with Japanese gay subculture, out. It allows the director to be
more flexible, to have humour against the serious, to the point of ridiculous,
sped up handbags-at-dawn spats and literal dialogue balloons, and have a tone
that can even lean on exploitation-like uses of sex and grit. At times the
sexuality is pronounced and close to a pinku film.

From http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_rUyDhdZLna8/TIGfxWCzS4I/AAAAAAAAahk/6VyFevxbXVA/s1600/funeralparadeofroses2.jpg

The open, matter-of-fact
view of its gay subject matter is refreshing, having fun with subverting gender
- three women at urinals for example - and is also unapologetically erotic and
titillating. Peter, when made up in
full make-up or when the camera lingers over his body in the shower like it
does on actresses in other movies, is unbelievably beautiful, to the point as a
heterosexual man I will add him, in this film, as one of the most gorgeous
individuals filmed on a camera I've seen. That he is charismatic and a good
actor makes this better, something to be proud of that he would later become
the court fool, an important side character, in Akira Kurosawa'sRan (1985).
(It is odd I can say his filmography also contains a Guinea Pig film, but that's why Japanese cinema and its ease in
blending different areas makes someone like Sean
Penn look lazy). Funeral Parade of
Roses enforces on me particularly, as a viewer interacting with cinema in
direct communication, that my own personal sexuality is an attraction to
femininity, all the things stereotypically attributed to it and when it is reconstructed
by women and transgender people - curves, heightened facial features like eye
lashes, clothing and textures, the more open ability to express thoughts and
emotions than many males etc. The film is as much on the nature of gender by
proving beauty is pansexual, seeing the drag queens and transgender women in
this, their lovers and clients as well, and how gender and sexuality is fluid
even if many of them prefer acting and dressing as stereotypical images of women,
wearing the most stylish boots and dresses they can afford, and being immensely
glamorous unless a female gang makes derogatory comments and a fight breaks out
between them.

From http://41.media.tumblr.com/89afa54a82055662dbc28204acd32c51/tumblr_mt77nnFY1N1qzl6klo1_500.png

Structurally, the narrative is as
playfully put together as the experimental sequences, chronology out of order
for large portions of it, built up as more is revealed, a pastiche of Streets of Shame (1956) or A Woman Ascends The Stairs (1960) with
a subversion of a famous tale I cannot actually name because it'll be a spoiler
for the ending. Together they create an enticing character drama as it's build
up with flashbacks in Eddie's life. The film throughout always feels bold,
still daring today. It comes from an era that may have been terrible for many
things, for things that feel quaint now - of pot smoking and equal opportunity
nudity - but the film is as much a view of the melting pot of art, social
interaction and sexuality that is vibrant. The direct references to real life
art and subculture "happenings" in the film add a historical
importance, documentary on the period in Japanese society, particularly footage
of a protest/conceptual art piece in the middle of a street, the titular parade
of the film's title involving men dressed in tinfoil gas masks and black
clothes. It's also a film catching when the tide would roll back, to paraphrase
Hunter S. Thompson, the spot where this
parade becoming empty, paper banners left scattered on the ground, or the
isolated and wounded protestor stuck in an apartment complex corridor by
himself with no one of his group to protect him from the police. As we take
interest in Eddie's life, we have as much interest in the (real) world around
him in digressions on various topics. This is something badly missed in most
art cinema of the present, the layers of culture that would be embedded in the
background of the main narrative. Viewing this film, and those in the same vein
like Throw Your Books Away, Rally In The
Streets (1971), feels like an adrenaline shot.

From http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PW-PuURq9dY/UTlZJ_xuPvI/AAAAAAAAKNo/1DA4gGp1BbQ/s1600/fp10.png

Abstract Rating
(High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

It's subject matter is still
unconventional, in the climate that we still occupy where the notion of transgender,
though respected, is in the realm outside of conventional gender politics
rather than fully embraced as many would desire. But that is not enough for an
abstract rating, as it could mean a film as good as this or a patronising drama
with less than good quality filmmaking depending on what was made. What does so
here is a presentation which, on another viewing, is still unpredictable and
throws new angles on the material. It's a film with a lot to take in. It has a
consistent, fascinating, and most importantly, engaging drama in its centre,
but Funeral Parade of Roses is also
different still in what you'd presume cinema is in the modern day, a difference
somewhat needed again. Suddenly there are repeats of a man sneezing, in the
middle of a dramatic beat, the frame almost slipping, unexpectedly in one
moment, not connected to the main story, what would be seen as redundant in
modern cinema, but fills and expands the tone of the film here for greater
impact. Snippets of interviews and footage from other sources are intercut into
scenes, disrupting and effecting them, adding texture and character. The blend
of fiction, reality and artificiality creates an unpredictable tone, such as a
dramatic scene suddenly turning into a Japanese period drama through a
character's preferred dress and a specific music cue chosen, without becoming
ironic, always empathetic to all the characters. Whilst retaining a straight forward
narrative, the film's structure is inherently unconventionally.

From http://41.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3vd15BsmF1qb5tu1o1_1280.png

Personal Opinion:

What makes the Sixties in art in
general enduring for me is, while a lot of it could be self indulgent and
pretentious, it still possesses art that is still original and fresh today to
see or listen to. The indulgence is enchanting, backing away from the
predictable, and in cinema, even a wobble of a handheld camera feels like a
flourish, accidents or things done on purpose bringing technical and aesthetic
style rarely seen today. In the case of this film, it means a lot to take in on
multiple viewings, a film that is easily accessible but also revealing new
things on each viewing I have of it. Once it gets to the end, capping off with
an unsettling yet poetic ending that reinterprets a legend in a pansexual
light, it also succeeds as existing in its own type of cinema, the blurring of
genre and tone you get in cult cinema, particularly art films like this, where
it never becomes tedious even if one found it frustrating. Moments feel like
they wouldn't be carried on into filmmaking of later decades but they stand out
nonetheless as very distinct filmmaking which I wish was still frequently done.

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"I could go on for hours with more examples. The list is endless. You probably never gave it a thought, but all great films, without exception, contain an important element of no reason. And you know why? Because life itself is filled with no reason." - Rubber (2010)

About Me

I am 28 years old and hail from England. For the last few years I have been a growing fan of cinema and have decided to take the next step into blogging about it and any other tangents that about the things I'm interested in I get onto.